kind, each one may be content with the portion which has fallen to his lot.
But I have now discoursed respecting these questions of art at more length perhaps than was needful, and will return to the life and death of Raphael. This master lived in the strictest intimacy with Bernardo Divizio, Cardinal of Bibbiena, who had for many years importuned him to take a wife of his selection, nor had Raphael directly refused compliance with the wishes of the Cardinal, but had put the matter off, by saying that he would wait some three or four years longer. The term which he had thus set approached before Raphael had thought of it, when he was reminded by the Cardinal of his promise, and being as he ever was just and upright, he would not depart from his word, and therefore accepted a niece of the Cardinal himself for his wife. But as this engagement was nevertheless a very heavy restraint to him, he put off the marriage from time to time, insomuch that several months passed and the ceremony had not yet taken place.[1] Yet this was not done without a very honourable motive, for Raphael having been for many years in the service of the Count, and being the creditor of Leo X. for a large sum of money, had received an intimation to the effect, that when the Hall with which he was then occupied was completed, the Pontiff intended to reward him for his labours as well as to do honour to his talents by bestowing on him the red hat,[2] of which he meant to distribute a con^ siderable number, many of them being designed for persons whose merits were greatly inferior to those of Raphael.[3]
- ↑ The intended bride of Raphael was Maria Bibbiena, but this lady died before he did, as we learn from the inscription placed in the Pantheon by the testamentary injunction of Raphael himself. It is, therefore, not im^ probable, that the true cause of the marriage being deferred was the illness of the lady,—Schorn, Masselli, and others.
- ↑ No reader will now require to be reminded, that the red hat is that of a cardinal, and that to receive the red hat, is equivalent to being raised to the dignity of a cardinal of the Roman Church.
- ↑ The father Pungileoni, and the advocate, C. Fea, deny that there was any intention of this kind on the part of Leo, but Longhena, in a note to the Isloria, makes certain observations from which it seems probable that what we here read is nevertheless true. We leave our readers to decide between these authorities; but it is to be remarked that no instance of the cardinal’s hat having been bestowed in recompense of artistic talent has yet been known.
